Peace and Foreign Policy

Created to collect information, the CIA quickly became embroiled in covertly upending governments and movements around the world in support of U.S. corporate and political goals.

The special nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance has resulted in special protection of and impunity for Israel in international arenas.

Based on a year-long investigation, reporter Gary Webb wrote that during the 1980s the CIA helped finance its covert war against Nicaragua’s leftist government through sales of cut-rate cocaine to South Central L.A. drug dealer, Ricky Ross.

U.S. agricultural policymakers have long relied on the world marketplace to serve a diverse agenda–including management of the domestic farm economy, promotion of geopolitical interests, and most prominently, bolstering exports.

U.S. drug policy is based on a punitive logic of deterrence that assumes that targeting the drug supply through aggressive law enforcement will deter drug use by making drugs scarcer, more expensive, and riskier to buy.

The conventional arms trade continues to bedevil the international system. Although the world arms trade continues to decline in dollar value, the major arms supplying states have redoubled their efforts to export their weapons overseas.

Washington’s goals in the Middle East involve support for Israel, assuring oil flow, and ensuring political stability for economic growth.

Multilateral debt, the result of lending by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), is contributing to the economic and social crisis that is overtaking many Low Income Countries (LICs).

When Saddam Hussein ordered his tanks and more than 40,000 troops into the Kurdish city of Irbil on August 31, 1996, he offered President Clinton an apparent “win-win,” election-season opportunity.